Sadly, the Long Weekend is Nearly Over

My nephew got to play in the Davis v SJSU on Saturday, they were ahead 10-0 until the end of the game and SJSU won 16-10. But the nephew got to play and that was exciting. Spending some time with my sister and her family (+ nephew's girlfriend) was fun. The next morning we had a bit of an adventure trying to find the train station to get my nephew back to Davis, but it all worked out and he got home just fine.

My almost daily posting on my beading blog has gotten me on the first page and pretty well positioned on that, of a Google search for "beaded badge lanyards" - not sure how many people actually search that, but I'm there if they do, so that makes me rather happy. Got a comment from Lois at A Beaded Affair who was searching on 'copper' and went to her very lovely blog and Etsy shop - I recommend her to you, too. Lots of wonderful artists I'm discovering who are doing beautiful work at Etsy.

Back to work tomorrow. I love having three day weekends but going on a business trip just one day afterwards will probably mean a lot of catching up next week. Speaking of which, the Saturday after this is the 13th - and my son's birthday, which fell on a Friday back in 1985.

Hard to believe it's been 23 years. I got to talk with him for over half an hour on Saturday morning, which was wonderful. He finally received the package I had shipped to him (Muscle Milk - he's always working out whenever he can, and wants to bulk up - maybe so the pack he carries isn't equal to 50% of his body weight? He's always been a wiry guy).

I also sent him a bunch of phone cards via a special deal the Army & Air Force Exchange Service has set up so non-military people can purchase and send them to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines they know who are overseas. I don't know if he has them yet or not.

By the way, even if you don't know a soldier overseas, there are special programs that will send your donated phone cards to a service person in the branch of your choice - just go to https://thor.aafes.com/scs/default.aspx and scroll down a bit to read the details.

It's been a while since I mentioned any of my favorite web comics, but A Girl and Her Fed is having a donation drive that's worth checking into. The artist is going to put her web-comics in print and with a donation of $30 you can help that happen and get some original art as a thank you.

Dave Kellett's got a new Sheldon book out - Pugs, God's Little Weirdos and I just received my copy with an original sketch and Dave's autograph. Sheldon's pug, Oso, is definitely a little weirdo.

Finally, and not about a comic strip, I got my copy of Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi. I'm waiting to read it on the plane, but it's been hard.

Last Post of May

I followed a link the other day from a comment on Making Light (thanks, Marilee!) and am now reading through the archives of yet another new (to me) webcomic, Two Lumps! There's a series of strips featuring the Two Lumps cats and a Roomba-like device! (keep clicking 'next' for the whole story-arc). I really believe you can't go wrong with the Roomba + cute mammal combo.

The comic is hosted on Keen Spot, which I can subscribe on my reader, unfortunately I have to scroll through all the strips I don't read to get to the ones I do (and so far there are two, Two Lumps and The Devil's Panties.

Do you remember the fads of your youth? I'm thinking of things like when I was in elementary school and everyone was doing those origami type folded paper "fortune" games - you picked a number (after the paper device was opened and closed in the proper ritualistic sequences) then a letter (more ritual) and finally got to lift the folded paper inside to find something written like "your secret crush knows you love him" or "you're the teacher's pet" (and the spelling wasn't always that good).

Then there was the jacks fad - could you ever get to tensies or higher? We didn't have superballs then, we used these little red rubber balls that didn't bounce all that high.

There was a brief time when all the girls would play on the parallel bar, spinning around and around it until you got sick or wore a hole in the sweater you used to keep from sticking to the bar and scraping all the skin under your knee off.

These days it's LOLcats and all the permutations thereof. LOLpresidents (at FARK, which may not always be SFW), LOLgerbils (hosted at LOLgay) (who spell it gebril and I love that to death - as well as the gebrils which are just so damned cute), LOLPilgrims, for the literate and an entire comment thread on Making Light of literate lolisms...apparently we've reached LOLsingularity.

Finally, for tonight that is, I had read a rumor that said:

On Monday, Publishers Weekly reported that Bookspan, acquired just six weeks ago by Bertelsmann, will cut 280 positions and close some of its book clubs, which include Book-of-the-Month, Doubleday and The Literary Guild. It looks as if the 54-year-old Science Fiction Book Club, which offers a selection of graphic novels and comic novelizations, will be among the casualties.

Although there haven’t been any official announcements, science fiction editor Jonathan Strahan reported on his blog yesterday that SFBC’s only editors — Editor-in-Chief Ellen Asher and Senior Editor Andrew Wheeler — have lost their jobs at Bookspan. Strahan says Bertelsmann probably will merge SFBC with its Doubleday Book Club.

However, an update post raises hopes that this is not the case.

I would be very sad to see the SFBC close. I have been a faithful member for over 30 years. I've been so loyal that about 15 years ago they took me off the "you better send in your card that says you are opting out of the monthly selection or we're gonna send it to you anyway and charge you for it" membership to "you just buy our books when ever you like, no worries about that selection response thingie". And I do buy from there, a lot. I hope it stays around for a long time.

dawno

Lazy Saturday Posting

Found a new web comic today Marry Me. It has only been around for a few months so it didn't take long to catch up. Clever writing and good art.

Tomorrow and Monday I need to do some housework - my son will be here on leave next weekend! I'll also be putting up another small press book review on Drive by Booking tomorrow. My Brontë books arrived, but I have a couple things to finish before I can get to them, so they aren't on the list of things to do this weekend.

I nearly had a crisis today - due to a completely my fault miscommunication my ohdawno.org hosting company agreement was not renewed and the site was down. A few years ago the husband and I read about this hosting company, 1&1, that was giving away hosting. We took them up on it and it was only recently that our free hosting agreement came to an end. My husband quickly got things turned back on, the monthly rate is very reasonable, and nothing was lost. I, coincidentally, discovered reading Whatever today, that site is hosted there too.

No hamster news. How about a cat picture? These are the grandkitties Pudding (l) and Jello (r)


dawno

Gay Flamingo Foster Parents, Shaggy Beards and an Occasional Hamster

In my wandering around Science Blogs the other day, starting as usual on Pharyngula, I saw this article about a pair of gay flamingos adopting an abandoned flamingo chick. Apparently the couple wanted to be parents badly enough that "they had resorted to stealing eggs from other pairs as they sought to fulfil their desperate desire to start a family of their own." It's a fascinating article by GrrlScientist, "a molecular evolutionary biologist who studies and lives with parrots and other birds."

Is it a generation thing that I don't find scraggly beards or overlong beard stubble sexy? I was reading the post at Shakesville (formerly? Shakepeare's Sister) about the season finale of Lost and the poster plus a number of commenters thought Jack's untamed facial hair sexy. I like beards but I do prefer them trimmed and neat. Not real crazy about the long stubble look at all.

Found a new web comic (thanks to Joel who left a link in a comment on Making Light) to seriously adore. Sequential Art. It's got an artist guy and a cat girl and a squirrel-girl and a penguin and a platypus and the occasional hamster and evil little things that I'm not sure what they are!

The illustration is good and the story is funny with a number of real laugh out loud moments as I caught up through the archives from the beginning tonight. I wish I could put it on my reader, but there's no feed that my Google Reader could find. *sigh* I'll just have to go there the old fashioned way with a bookmark. Funny how you get attached to new gizmos like the reader and everything else seems like so much extra effort now.

I got an email from the International Weblogger's Day folk today, reminding me of the event and this year's topic. Click the button to learn more. InWeDay is June 14th.



dawno

Next Up - Ports of Call on Your Virtual Cruise

Map of Online Communities

I've got quite a list of webcomics on my RSS reader list now. Dinosaur Comics, Questionable Content, xkcd, Wondermark, Penny Arcade (which I only 'get' about 2% of the time), User Friendly. What, if any, are your favorites?



dawno